HALFBLOOD
by Grimm Sister
Summary: The most overlooked, but the most powerful and volatile.  The worst adjusted, the most confused.  Neither side of the war is fighting for them, but they are the ones leading the charge, the ones risking everything on both sides.
1. H eavy hitters

_H eavy hitters_

For all his bluster about the purity of blood, for all he believes his own propaganda most of the time, it is Mad-Eye Moody, halfblood and half-man according to some, after whom Voldemort goes first on the night they severed the protection charm and seven Potters moved in the night sky.

Mad-Eye was the biggest threat, just as Harry had been the bigger threat than the pureblooded Neville. Just as Albus Dumbledore was the only man he ever feared.

He is a halfblood himself, so he knows the power – if you can harness it – of two conflicting passions, two conflicting selves, warring in one body. It can drive you mad, and it can make you do anything – things neither Mudblood or pureblood has ever imagined. Mad-Eye Moody is a halfblood and the most dangerous foe in the night skies, so he is the one that Voldemort is certain to kill.

Purebloods fall into line behind a leader, it is their instinct after following their Head of Family from the beginning. Mudbloods cower, shrinking away in confusion and pain and regret, or stand to be devoured by dying proudly, never amounting to much. Halfbloods, on the other hand, have the right to both worlds, and they refuse to follow or to bow to those who have a birthright only to one.

They are volatile and dangerous and even when they are on your side you never know if they can be trusted. Halfbloods are different. They could do anything. They are the ones to eliminate, so that the world is black and white with no gray. Black will destroy white in a world of extremes, but gray is the most powerful shade of all.


	2. A ppearance by allegiance

_A ppearance by allegiance_

One thing often misunderstood about Metamorphmagi is that their appearance doesn't just change when they consciously will it, especially when they're young. Whenever they change - change sides, change jobs, change situations – their appearance echoes the change.

Nymphadora Tonks used to change her appearance twice every day when she was little. She would have the high-cheekbones, long lustrous dark hair, and the dainty dignity of the Black family when her mother was home alone with her and then take on a wide-eyed, smiling face with light curly hair when her father came home. Nymphadora's appearance reflected the constant oscillation of her childhood between her mother's ingrained values and pride and her father's spunky spirit.

It was odd to think that someday she would have to choose. Wasn't she a Metamorphmagus? She wasn't even stuck with her basic physical appearance! They told her she could be anything, but the truth was she could be _everything_.

But when she met Remus Lupin, Nymphadora Tonks made a decision, one that was built to last. And her appearance reflected it, freezing for the first time in her life. It was like something shifted into place, permanently. She eventually regained the ability to change her face and hair at will, but she no longer blurred from one self to another. She was fixed.

She could still be anything she wanted, but she could no longer be everything she wanted. They say all halfbloods have to make a choice someday. That usually meant the magical world or the Muggle one, her father's family or her mother's. That's what she had expected it to be. It was so much simpler, really, for the choice she made to be Remus Lupin, because neither parent particularly liked it and neither world accepted him.

Most halfbloods didn't realize that there was always a third option.


	3. L ily's half

_L ily's half_

Of all of the things that Severus Snape hated about Lily Evans's power over him, he hated that it had made him half-Gryffindor. "Sometimes I think we Sort too soon," Dumbledore had said and thought it would be a compliment.

Blood traitor. On his father's side. Traitor. Teacher. Murderer of Albus Dumbledore.

More than any of it, he hated that she had made him half-Gryffindor. Half Lily's chosen side, devoted to her son while despising her husband. Dumbledore's most trusted servant while glorifying Malfoy and the elitist boys' club of Slytherin. Death Eater and Order member, suspected by both and trusted only by the leader of either.

It was Gryffindor foolishness through and through – to do everything for a woman who had rejected him soundly, for a woman who married his greatest enemy, for a woman who died despising him. Gryffindor romanticism to think that she knew or cared, to think that she would forgive.

But would Gryffindor heroics have made any of those fools brave enough to kill Albus Dumbledore? To label yourself his murderer for the meager goal of keeping Hogwarts from sliding completely into the darkness? He thought not.

He was only half-Slytherin anymore, and Lily's half was Gryffindor.

Severus Snape divided his life between two women: for his mother he scorned Muggles like the father she was shackled to, for Lily Evans he became nothing but a tool for Albus Dumbledore to do what was necessary without question.

Half for Eileen Prince, the Halfblood Prince, magnificent among purebloods.

Half for Lily Evans, Snape the Potionsmaster and Murderer and Headmaster.

Slytherin for his mother, Gryffindor for Lily. He split his life down the middle for the only two women he ever loved.


	4. F rom the Muggle side

_F rom the Muggle side_

"Wait," his mother said, stopping him in the middle of recounting his triumphs. "Albus, you don't think that you got your talent from your father, do you?"

Albus blinked at his mother. He didn't want to say that that was precisely what he had thought when his brilliance exploded into the public sphere seven years ago. Kendra Dumbledore stared at her son, meeting his eyes to force him to do the same. "Albus, your father wasn't even as talented as Aberforth. You and Ariana take after me. I didn't have the opportunities to develop it that you get from your surname, but you get your gift from me."

Albus didn't know what threw him more, the mention of his mother's power and talent or that of Ariana's. The teenager who had spent his life in contact with the most powerful names of the wizarding world, whose owl winged into Godric's Hollow to debate with Bathilda Bagshot more often than to greet his mother and sister, could barely comprehend the notion of Ariana's power being comparable to his.

Apparently his perceptiveness, which some accused of bordering on mind-reading, also came from his Muggleborn mother. "Why do you think she is so dangerous, Albus? Why do you think I don't find a discreet nurse so that I could work or at least be more active in the community? It takes all of my considerable power and skill to control it when her remarkable talent explodes. Do you think that any ordinary witch could turn her own magic in on herself in an attempt to strip it away?" She paused a moment to consider, then continued, "Why do you think it was your father who went after the Muggles? He knew he could not control her level of power, my level of power.

"That's why you'll have to be the one to care for her when I die, Albus. Aberforth is a lovely boy, and he could make her have fewer outbursts, but he couldn't handle when they inevitably come."

All of his life, Albus had been building up accomplishments to reclaim the name of Dumbledore, finding comfort in a piece of his father to which he could still cling. He hadn't even considered…he hadn't seen…

Shouldn't he of all people have known? Some power goes beyond the ability of awards to honor or accomplishment to capture. Isn't that what teachers always said of his?

And it was all from the Muggle side of his family.

It was some time before Albus could embrace that part of his himself, but, in later years when he made a studied effort, this revelation from his mother accomplished wonders.

In the meantime, the boy with a respected pureblood name and his Muggleborn mother's shock of magic went back to school to continue wowing the world.


	5. B its and pieces

_B its and pieces_

He was always half and half. Half pirate and half policeman. Half wizard and half Muggle. Even his appearances reflect it now: one Muggle peg leg suitable for a pirate, one magical eye ideal for an Auror.

He was always half practical and half imaginative. So he knew the likelihood of things happening and the simplest, safest way to get them done. So he could imagine a hundred occurrences, a thousand dangers, that no one else would anticipate and ward against. Most of the time, his practicality would have been enough, but he has the scars to prove that it wouldn't always have saved him. He also has scars from when his imagination ran away with him.

Half-intimidating and half-deceptively weak. Half revered and half mocked.

But he trusts no one, no one at all, because he has learned that wizards and Muggles both turn on you. Both worlds have, in part, rejected him. Both have produced traitors and cowards and weaklings and idiots. So he trusts no one, Muggle or magical.

It is his greatest strength, and it is his death.

Half wizard, dueling valiantly in midair, nerves of steel even as Voldemort himself flies toward him. Half Muggle, surprised for one fatal moment when his charge disappears into thin air.


	6. L ove of the game

_L ove of the game_

Seamus sometimes wondered if his parents talked. Of course, he saw them together. It certainly wasn't as if they were unhappy. They were just impulsive. They had eloped after three weeks on a lark when his mother hadn't even told him about magic yet.

But they were always planning separate surprises for him that always managed to coincide. And they'd good-naturedly leave it to him to choose which outing he wanted to do.

He loved the choice when he was little, and it was usually his dad who had a better handle on a little boy's ideas of fun.

But as he grew older, more and more he preferred the events in the magical world. And when he came back from Hogwarts for the first time, he could see it in his father's eyes: he was proud of his witch wife and his wizard son, but he mourned the part of their lives he couldn't share. And he absolutely refused to attend a Quidditch match.

It came to a head when they both secured – by some pair of malicious miracles – tickets to the World Cup – football and Quidditch.

So Seamus stood with one ticket in each hand wishing he could burn them both, tear them into a thousand pieces, but he knew that it would not free him of the choice.


	7. O ptions

_O ptions_

Pureblooded werewolves tended to commit suicide in shame. Muggle werewolves tended to end up slaves to Fenrir Greyback. Muggleborn werewolves tended to leave the country and hide themselves away in the mountains or some other overdramatic rubbish. It was a pretty paltry list of options.

Remus Lupin went to Hogwarts. He asked his parents to at least ask. When they didn't, he wrote to Dumbledore himself. He wasn't even sure if he wanted to go, but he wanted to know his options. Dumbledore listened, and he helped Remus Lupin find a way to live among those who were wholly wizards. Even Muggleborns had that on him. They were wizards and witches, pure and simple. Remus Lupin was, at best, half-wizard.

The "were" part of "werewolf" got overlooked by purebloods and Muggles who received the Bite. They just didn't know how to handle it. The "half-man" part of "half-man, half-wolf" was forgotten by almost everyone.

Remus Lupin kept a gun with a silver bullet under his bed, and he attended Greyback's rallies, only mostly for Dumbledore. He kept his options open, because his attempt to teeter on the fence, plough his way through the minefield, didn't always work out so well.

But Remus Lupin had been raised a halfblood from the beginning, then grown up half-man, and, though he would keep his options open, he intended to find a way to live with both halves of what he was. He would cling to the half of himself that was left in his power, in his control, and if the other half ever won the constant struggle for mastery, he had his options lined up for how to handle it.

A silver bullet, a place in the ranks, and in the meantime, he had a life to lead. He always felt like he was only halfway there, but it was better than being nowhere at all. His choice was painful and hard and full of prejudice and betrayal and lost friends, but it was better than the alternatives before him.


	8. O ne

_O ne_

Was there ever a halfblood who rejected the magical world?

There was one who tried.

Remember Ariana Dumbledore.


	9. D oubtful rank

_D oubtful rank_

It was an odd rank, if you thought about it. All the expectations of a pureblood without the respect of the psychopathic purists.

And Harry Potter always wore it awkwardly. He was as Muggle-raised as it was possible to be and the most ignorant of the magical world's customs of all his friends.

But he was a Potter and the most famous wizard of his generation. So he was called a halfblood.

And his roots went back into the rich world that opened for him with Diagon Alley, and the more he drinks from the soil the deeper he realizes his roots go.

It is an odd rank in the wizarding world and Harry Potter always wore it awkwardly.


End file.
